


Project: Freedom

by allmagiccomeswithrice (bisaleth)



Category: Brave (2012), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Military, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Nomadic life, Orgy, Science Fiction, nomads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 00:57:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4686185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisaleth/pseuds/allmagiccomeswithrice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After having died in combat, Jack is brought back to life with an experimental serum created by General Pitchiner in an attempt to find a way to raise his daughter from the dead.  Without so much as a full day to live before he will be killed again to get the serum back from his body, Jack's patrol(Merida, Hiccup, and Rapunzel) defy orders and flee in order to protect him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Project: Freedom

_“The operation will be tomorrow at 0800 hours. For the time being, you are permitted to return to your patrol and give them the good news. Congratulations, Overland. You have been revived. You’ll go down in history for this.”_

Jack stared at the woman, unable to do anything but nod as he left the room and mindlessly walked toward where he knew his patrol would be, despite fast transportation being available.

He’d died. No amount of explaining was going to make that seem normal. Not that he’d ever been particularly concerned with being normal, but this was over the top, even for him.  That wasn’t the only thing that was bothering him about this whole ordeal, though. Coming back to life had been more excruciating than dying had been to begin with. So how bad was it gonna be when they take him apart, piece by piece?

Before he had enough time to answer these sorts of questions or even so much as resolve how he felt about being alive again, he found that he’d already arrived at the door.

Taking a deep breath, he pressed the button to open it, finding everyone lounging on their respective bunks, doing various boring things. This was good, he could work with this. Everyone is being normal, just pretend this happens all the time. shrug it off. Smile.  “Jeez, you’d think someone died, by the way you guys are spending all your free time moping about.”

Hiccup looked up first. “Jack…?” Hiccup put down the book he was reading and jumped down from his bunk above Jack’s. He reached out and grabbed Jack’s shoulder like he was a ghost. He was real. And he was back. “I-I saw you die…” Hiccup said under his breath. He noticed the two girls had gotten off their bunks to see Jack as well.  Rapunzel exchanged a confused look with Merida before getting up and staring at Jack in wonder and awe. She hadn’t seen Jack’s death, as Merida and Hiccup had, but she’d seen the aftermath, and it was horrible. Jack had been well and truly dead, she was completely certain of it.

Now, Rapunzel’s mother had been more than a little bit paranoid. She’d raised Punz with the ideas of shapeshifers being very real threats to humanity and, most particularly, her. As much as Rapunzel didn’t think she believed in what her mother had taught her anymore, this particular occurrence made her think twice about the shifters.  “Is it really you…?” She spoke quietly as she began to crowd Jack, pulling at his shirt in an attempt to take it off, which he quietly allowed.  “You’re not Jack! You're a shapeshifter or, or- or something! He’s dead, I saw him.” Tears burned at the brim of her eyes as she’d lifted enough of his shirt to see all the scars and laser burns that she knew were Jack’s.

Dumbfounded, she stepped back and watched. It was Jack.

“Ay! I saw ‘em with my own eyes. Dead he was!” Merida had her bow already loaded in her hands. “The only way you could be Jack is if ye’ were a shifter!”

Hiccup placed his hand on Merida’ shoulder. “Stand down Merida. If this was a shifter, wouldn’t they have tried to at least look like Jack? I mean his hair is white! I say we search him.” Hiccup ordered. He watched Merida go up to Jack and grab him by the pants belt loops like she once did during one of their “parties”.

“Wow, what a show of trust in your friend, here.  Thanks, guys, really appreciate the warm welcome.”  He waited a moment as Merida searched his pant pockets before adding. “There’s a note from General Pitch in the inner pocket of my jacket, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for, Mer.”

Merida looked up at Jack, blushing. “Grab the jacket, Haddock.” She said as she watched him walk to the jacket. Merida grabbed Jack’s Pants and began to unbutton them. “Ay’ need ta take these from ye’!” Merida said, looking at Punz for assistance.

Jack chuckled as raised his hands in a casual surrender. “Okay, okay. Can we at least shut the door before we start this kind of thing?” He smirked, stepping in closer and reaching over to press on the close button.  
“Much better. Okay, all ready to lay myself bare and go crazy.” He closed his eyes in trust as Rapunzel joined Merida. “Y’know, honestly, I didn’t think we’d get down to it so soon after I came back from the dead. Not that I’m complaining.”

Hiccup just looked at the girls and back at the paper in his hand. “Yup. Signed by Pitch. It's definitely his hand writing. Says Jack went thru a sort of 'treatment'. 'He's much better. Do not ask questions.' Alright, guess we are good." He looked at Jack, winking as he shed his own shirt.

“Alright, woo~!  See, Hic’s got the right idea, you guys really should start taking notes. Are we gonna celebrate me being alive now?  I only have until tomorrow, so…” Jack pushed his way past everyone and onto his untouched bunk, sitting himself down and making himself comfortable.

They all stayed silent for a moment, waiting for Jack to elaborate, which he didn’t decide to do. Rapunzel approached him first, sitting next to him. “Until…- Are you going somewhere?” She asked, her tone melancholy. She didn’t receive a reply outside of a shrug as Jack lay backward into the mattress.  Hiccup laughed and then his face became stern. “Wait…what? What happens tomorrow?” Hiccup asked, he was very concerned now.

Jack simply shrugged again, rolling on to his stomach and murmuring unintelligibly into the sheets, groaning in the same way he did when his mother would to wake him up for school in the morning.  All three of them sat on the bed with him. “Jack…don’t leave us hanging, bud. Now we are curious….they didn’t find out about us right?” Hiccup took a breath patting his shoulder. “Please tell me they didn’t find out about the 'parties', Jack. Did they scan you?“

Jack gave a long sigh before sitting up, looking at them all very seriously. “No, no, they’re still in the dark about that, it’s just-. If they find out I told you guys the details, they’d. Well, they’d be pretty mad, to say the least.” He chuckled half-heartedly at his understatement. “But I guess we never listened to the rules anyway, right?” he looked at the three of his most trusted comrades as they eagerly waited for him to continue.

“They literally brought me back to life, guys. I mean it. I was full on dead for days. Koz-” He cleared his throat, correcting himself in respect. “General Pitch has been working on this project since his daughter died. You guys remember how he was. Disappearing all the time. I thought he was just grieving, but this is what he was doing. He was making this serum to bring her back to life.”

Rapunzel smiled, but still couldn’t help feeling as though there was more to it. “Oh, that’s great! That’s a huge breakthrough! And General Pitch will be reunited with his daughte-”

“No. They used up all of what they had in bringing me back. Their only remaining stuff is now a part of me, and they can’t duplicate it like this. Tomorrow they’re gonna…they’re going to dissect me and remove parts of my insides. They say I have a chance of continuing to live through it, but that it’ll hurt like a bitch because they can’t put me under or anything. If they can’t get enough of it to duplicate without killing me, they’re just….gonna put me down.” Jack hugged himself as he stared down at the floor. “You guys, you…don’t understand. It was- coming back to life was excruciating. It was that bad, and can you imagine watching yourself be torn apart, not knowing if you- if you’re gonna-” He couldn’t finish, he was stuttering too much to want to continue.

Hiccup gulped at the horrid thought. Everyone just sat there in silence for a minute until Merida interrupted it.

“Well we won’t let it happen.” She breathed as she got up and walked back to her bunk. She grabbed a bag from under the bunk and threw it on the bed. Everyone looked at her in collective surprise.

Rapunzel took a moment before she fully understood what Merida was doing, but still managed to roll with it, nodding seriously and resting her head in her palm in thought. “Yeah, but we’ll need a really good plan to get him past General Pitchiner.” She turned expectantly toward Hiccup.

Before Hiccup could even begin to say anything, Jack interrupted. “Whoa, slow down here, guys, what?”

Merida started shoving random items into her backpack. “We are leavin’! I’m not letting ye’ get killed again.” She said, more stern. She felt like crying now. She couldn’t let someone so close to her die when she could do something about it.

Hiccup looked at Jack and back at Merida. He paused and looked at his feet, fists clenched. “I’m with Mer. We’re leaving. Get your bags, Jack.” He said in all seriousness. He grabbed his own backpack and started throwing items In. “Punz you in?” He asked, looking at her now.

Rapunzel nodded as she marched over to her bunk, reaching underneath it to grab her things. “Oh, I’m way in.  The real question is how we’re gonna manage to sneak-…whoa.” Her speech halted as she stared at Jack in awe.

Jack didn’t immediately realize what he was doing. He was so busy thinking about all the things that could go horribly wrong, and debating with himself about what the right thing to do would be, that he didn’t even notice the frost that was crawling from his feet and into the floor. “..But if I go down, Emily Jane might have a chance at coming back. do I really have the right to run away when Koz is this close to getting his daughter back?”

Hiccup and Merida looked at Jack, and the frost creeping under his feet. Hiccup spoke first. “Uh hey, Jack…is that new?” Hiccup pointed to Jack’s feet.

“Is-” Jack looked down at the frost at his feet, amazed at how the little ice ferns grew out from each other like a plant growing leaves. He moved his foot slightly, to make sure the ice followed, and it did. It was him.  Standing up, he glanced at the others and their faces before chuckling in excitement. “This- this is…” He began to dance around the room, his feet clumsily slipping all over the ice as he laughed is shear joy. “This is so cool!”

Hiccup looked at Jack in amazement. “I can’t believe my eyes.”

Rapunzel’s eyes were wide as she hopped onto the ice, joining Jack in his carefree ice dancing.  “I can!  This is perfect.  It’s the middle of summer!  Jack can use his ice as a distraction so we can all sneak past everyone!”

Hiccup just watched as he saw Merida join them in their games. “We need a well thought out plan. Any ideas, you guys?”

“C’mon, Hiccup!  You’re the idea man!”  Jack paused to touch the wall, icing it over and watching as the ice spread from his hands.  “Where are we gonna go, anyway?  If we go to any of our families, they’ll be expecting us to be there.  We’ll get caught.  …But where else is there?”

Hiccup thought a moment. Right now the world was at war with the Shifters. The lest of places they could run to would be the area where all the shifters are. But how would they get by without being killed? If they stay in that place then they will surly be killed. Unless… “Guys I may have an idea! Come over here a sec.”

Everyone gathered around Hiccup, huddling and listening intently.  Hiccup already had a map out and spread across the bed.

“You guys remember the nomads we helped back almost a year ago? Well here is what I think. We should become nomadic. This means we don’t stay in one place for long. As soon as a sighting of us is reported we will already be gone. As long as our patterns are off we won’t have to deal with anyone coming after us. This also means we should travel with other people so we don’t seem obvious.” Hiccup pointed to a place on the map. “We get to this town and buy clothes that match the nomads, then we use the commoners as information to find the nomads themselves. They are welcoming people who are always looking for more people to join them.“ He took a red pen and drew the routes they would be taking. “Getting out of here. We could use Jack’s ice. Freeze the guards while they aren’t looking. You would need to make sure they cannot see you. Do so, and they won’t be able to witness us leave. Does this sound good to you?” He looked at the others expectantly.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, but- um… you guys sure you wanna do this? I mean, you’d be giving up for freedom for this…”

“Are you kidding? Being a nomad sounds way more free than anything I’ve known. Mother never let me out of the house and it isn’t like being in the military gives you much freedom, either.” Rapunzel put her hand on Jack’s shoulder and glanced at everyone in their group, pointedly. “We already lost you once. We had to grieve your death. We’re not going to lose you again.”

  
“Punz is right. We are done losing you. I’m in on this plan if you are Jack.” Merida stated and placed a firm hand on his other shoulder. She smiled up at him with encouragement.

Jack looked up at the group, his resolve growing. “Alright. We’re doing this. Is my stuff still here, or has it already been sent to my family?”

“Most of it, but I managed to snag some of it before they came.” Merida made her way under her bunk. She pulled out a drawbag and untied it. She pulled out Jack’s watch and a few books including his journal. “I didn’t want anyone going through your journal in case you'd written about our parties. I haven’t read it, I swear.“ She handed everything to Jack. “But everything else is gone.”

Relief spread across Jack’s features as he grabbed the journal. “Thanks, Mer. I wouldn’t have minded you reading it, but there are some things I don’t want my mom and sister to know.” He chuckled. “I didn’t write about the parties, though. Way too risky.”

Merida just blushed and smiled.

“…Right….” Rapunzel raised an eyebrow, taking a quick, pointed glance at her sack, where her journal was located, before continuing. “Well, anyway. Doesn’t really matter anymore, since we’re not staying here. Oh my god, we’re really doing this. We’re just gonna get up and go. This is it.”

”I’ll also need to grab Toothless from the stables. It won’t be easy getting him by but we will need to be fast after we leave so 500mpl will give us a boost.”

Jack stood, smiling at the others. “We've got this.” He walked over to the door, hand over the button to open it. “Ready?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a current, ongoing roleplay on tumblr between myself and dat-haddock-kid. He's Hiccup and Merida, while I'm Punz and Jack. His fanfiction.net account can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3141795/That-Viking-Kid


End file.
